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Food and Restaurants

Leading F&B service providers including HoReCa players and QSRs rely on us to stay up-to date with consumer preferences & industry trends

RTE / RTC Cloud kitchen Food delivery

What We Do

Category assessment
Category trends
Sector scan
Customer NPS & loyalty
Voice of customer
Customer purchase journey
Shopping decision tree
Customer segmentation
Need & intent gap analysis
Digital persona mapping
Mystery shopping
Employee engagement
Employee satisfaction and NPS
Brand health diagnostic
Advertising effectiveness
Product testing and menu impact
Menu satisfaction study
Price benchmarking
Go-to-market
Unit economics benchmarking
Future share of wallet

Category assessment

What is the market size of each category?
Who are the major players across categories – restaurants, cloud kitchen, etc.?
How does the value chain vary for each category – central commissary, touch points, delivery, etc.?
How does the unit economics look like across business models / key competitors?
What are the changing customer needs?
What are the growth drivers / barriers?

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Category trends

What are the different categories? How have they been growing?
What is the growth outlook for the categories / sub-categories?
What are the growth drivers / barriers?
What are the changing customer needs?
What is the impact of new trends on unit economics? Which business models are doing well? Why?

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Sector scan

What is the market attractiveness across sectors – macro-economic indicators, capital markets, etc? Is it growing or stagnant?
How has the PE / VC interest varied across the sector?
What are the growth drivers? Are certain business models outperforming others?
What are the risks associated? Are there new entrants in the sector?
What is the digital adoption across the sector? Is there a significant advantage of digital adoption?
What are the best investible opportunities across the sector?

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Customer NPS & loyalty

How satisfied is the customer?
What is the customer NPS? What are the drivers of NPS?
What are the common problems and pain points?
Benchmark of customer satisfaction with the industry
What are global best practices that can be implemented?
What are the consumer dynamics with restaurants – repeat order frequency, ABV, etc.?

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Voice of customer

How do the customers perceive the company compared to the competition?
What is the value proposition of players? How does it vary across chain vs standalone?
What are the top 3 factors customers look for while visiting or ordering?
What are the pain points in the customer journey?
What is the rating given by the customer across factors? What are the things to improve or maintain?

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Customer purchase journey

How does a typical customer journey look like?
What are the pain points at each stage in the purchase journey?
What are the various channels for purchasing - online vs. offline?
What is the impact of offers / discounts on conversion of customer?
What is the customer satisfaction with redressal channels - call / text / email?
What is the impact of offers / discounts on conversion of consumer?

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Shopping decision tree

What is the intention or the purchase occasion of the purchase?
What are the key purchase criteria that are responsible to induce repeat purchase from the restaurant?
Is the content promoted by the restaurant / store relevant to the customers?
What Is the effectiveness of the advertisement to trigger purchase from the store?
How is the performance of the staff compared to the competitors / industry? Does it vary for standalone vs chain restaurants?
What are the factors influencing customers to order / buy from the store?
What is the shopper satisfaction across the journey?

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Customer segmentation

Where are the customers present across geographies?
What is NCCS profile of the different customers?
What are different aspirations of the customers?
How is the digital presence of the customer – online shopping, subscribed to OTT platforms, usage of payments apps, etc?
What are the major customer archetypes?

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Need & intent gap analysis

From which side does a gap exist in the market – supply or demand?
What are the underlying reasons for the gap?
How can the restaurants / delivery apps help in filling the gap?
How can the players upgrade their offerings to meet the unmet demand / gap in the market?
Are there any new entrants in the market that are focussing on the gaps?

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Digital persona mapping

How educated is the customer?
What is the NCCS profile?
What is the online usage behavior of the customer – frequency of visiting / ordering from restaurants, cloud kitchens, etc
How is the digital presence of the customer – online shopping, subscribed to OTT platforms, usage of payments apps, etc?

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Mystery shopping

What is the customer journey? How does it vary across player to player?
What are the various industry benchmarks in the process and how does the player rate across them?
What are the various offerings / cuisines / dishes offered? How are they priced compared to competitors?
How was the quality of products and services?
What are the pain points in the journey? Are there any gaps?

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Employee engagement

What is the measure of employee engagement?
What are the current employee engagement levels?
What has been the trend in employee retention?
What percentage of the employees regularly meet their key job objectives?
What percentage of the employees regularly over-achieve their key job objectives?
What are the employee perceptions of the ethos and values of the organization?

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Employee satisfaction and NPS

How satisfied are the employees with the organization / restaurant across different parameters?
What are the areas of strength which employees would like the organization / restaurant to continue and build on?
What are the key improvement areas?
How satisfied are the employees with their career path in the organization / restaurant?
How likely are the employees willing to recommend the organization / restaurant to others?

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Brand health diagnostic

How strong is the brand? What is the degree of brand awareness with respect to competitors?
What are the key values associated with the brand?
What are the typical avenues for introducing brand to B2B and B2C customers, industry experts and influencers?
What is the effectiveness of various channels for brand introduction?
How does brand awareness change with demographics and customer needs and taste?
How important is brand in the sale process?
What are some of the best practices to strengthen brand value?

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Advertising effectiveness

What advertising mediums and spends are deployed by the company? How does it stand against competition?
What is the advertising reach across modes and customer segments?
How does the advertising reach compare with competition? What is the customer recall?
What is the frequency of advertising vis-à-vis competition?
What is the click-through rate of digital advertising for various products and customer segments? How does it compare with benchmarks?
What is the propensity to induce enquiry and trial? What is the impact on the overall brand?
What is the ROI on advertising overall, and on specific campaigns?

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Product testing and menu impact

What do customers think about existing menu? What would they like to add to it?
What types of cuisines / ingredients are other competitors using?
How can we get insights on customer preferences on the taste and features and overall product / menu concept pre-launch?
How does a new menu impact the existing brand of the restaurant? How should this be addressed in marketing campaigns?
What is the optimal beta launch design for a proposed menu?

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Menu satisfaction study

What is the level of satisfaction on different food items / cuisines in the menu?
What to customers think about the food items in the menu – colour, consistency, etc.?
How likely is the customer to promote respective menu items?
What is the level of satisfaction with various menu items – food, beverages, desserts, etc.?
How does the NPS vary across regions and menu items / cuisines and how does it compare with key competitors?
What are the key reasons for a customer to be a promoter / detractor of the menu items?
What are the improvement areas across menu items? What is the level of stickiness across menu items?

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Price benchmarking

How should we set the price for the new menu items / features / value proposition?
For the same menu items, how does the price stack against the competition?
For the same raw materials, how does the procurement price stack against the competition?
What are the factors that will lead to increase in price that the customers are willing to pay?
How can price be used as a strategy to win market share?

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Go-to-market

Have you identified the target market? On what basis?
Have you understood the target market’s customer personas and their tastes and preferences?
Do you understand the customer journey for the target customer?
How do plan to build brand awareness and generate demand in the target market?
How do you plan to develop the value chain necessary to run operations, from supplies to legal permits?

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Unit economics benchmarking

What are the different revenue streams per customer? What are the drivers of revenue?
How much does it cost in time and money to service / acquire a customer? What is the LTV of a customer?
What fixed and variable cost components are associated with servicing a customer?
What are the drivers of fixed and variable cost?
What is the break-even scale and time taken to reach breakeven?

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Future share of wallet

What is the share of wallet of the competitor across product categories?
How can client capture higher share of customer’s wallet?
How can client retain current share of wallet?
What is the level of stickiness across menu item / food categories?
What are the triggers that would make customers shift to another brand?

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Connect with our Food and Restaurants Experts

Madhur Singhal

Mentor

Aryaman Tandon

Mentor

Hitesh Gossain

CEO, Network

Amar Choudhary

CEO, Intelligence & Insights

Ashish Dhir

Senior Director, Intelligence and Insights

Related Case Studies

Identifying forward trends in the online food ordering business using qualitative research

Objective

A restaurant chain that aspired to expand their business with a new opportunity having great potential to serve the needs and wants of customers with food ordering experience
Define customer lifecycle value based upon their repurchase propensity and increasing share of wallet

Methodology

In-depth primary conversations with customers (N = 50) ordering online to create a blueprint of repurchase propensity and share of wallet going forward
Based on current trends and articulation by customers, the axes for a food ordering business are defined to give customer lifecycle value and potential growth parameters for the business

Impact / Outcome

Client understood in detail the customer perspectives regarding their repurchase propensity, wallet share and the major issues found in the existing offering

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Prioritization of new opportunities in online food ordering business based on market sizing, TAM, SAM, proprietary scorecard

Objective

From a long list of new opportunities for the business, client wanted to know each opportunity in detail to help decide what area of opportunities to progress with for expansion

Methodology

A scorecard is created for each opportunity detailing offering and customer use cases with highlights on the winnability
Performed market sizing for each of the shortlisted opportunities
Defined the SAM for each opportunity to serve as important criteria for reaching an order of most attractive opportunities
Mapped opportunities on a scale of their market potential and the ease of execution

Impact / Outcome

Scorecard provided detailed insight to the opportunity and the present market scenario for the same
The plot helped form the discussion for the opportunities to be proceeded for the GTM strategy

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Realization improvement for a major online restaurant booking player

Objective

Client wanted to understand how to improve the realization (realized revenue / booked revenue)
Objective was to understand the various drivers of cancellation across different cities, offerings, channels etc. using primary research and data analytics
Client wanted to set up a framework to control this metric on a continuous basis

Methodology

Interviewed N = 1,000 customers basis their booking behavior and city to understand the reasons leading to cancellations
Performed comprehensive data analysis to identify patterns and uplift potential and generate actionable insights
Interaction with key competitors employees (N = 5) and restaurant partners (N = 10) to understand potential solutions for churn
Institutionalized an overall framework and established deep capabilities in the client’s organization to monitor and improve this metric on an ongoing basis

Impact / Outcome

Company understood the various drivers of cancellation and the action items required to tackle them
An overall governing framework was established along with necessary systems and processes to improve this metric

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Quantitative restaurant survey

Objective

Client wanted to understand restaurant needs & pain points, present level of digitization, attractiveness of potential offerings and perception of food delivery partners

Methodology

Conducted restaurant owner survey (N = 200) across leading Indian metro and tier-1 cities to understand consumer preferences
Conducted in-depth interviews with restaurants owners / managers (N = 30) across 3 cities – Delhi & Gurgaon, Bengaluru and Mumbai

Impact / Outcome

Client was able to understand restaurant pain points across business operations, level of tech adoption by business processes and what could be impactful tech solutions that could help them run their operations more effectively
Client was able to understand perception of food delivery partners by restaurants, and strengths and pain points w.r.t. Zomato & Swiggy

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Online food ordering consumer survey to study consumer behavior

Objective

Client wanted to understand consumer behavior and preferences in regards with online food ordering including parameters like frequency and occasion of order, awareness and usage, cuisine preferences, etc.

Methodology

N = 30 in-depth interviews to understand consumer tastes and preferences across various cities and their online food ordering behaviour
Consumer survey (N = 1,500) across Metros & tier-1 cities to understand consumer tastes and preferences across various cities and their online food ordering behaviour

Impact / Outcome

In-depth understanding of consumer online food ordering behavior and its nuances across geographies including preferences of cuisines, frequency of ordering and AOV, occasion buying, etc.

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Customer persona and need identification for adjacent opportunities in online food ordering

Objective

Identify customer persona based on pre-set parameters / needs
List of adjacent opportunities which can be introduced by client with minimal investments
Shortlist key opportunities to develop go-to-market strategy

Methodology

Conducted in-depth customer discussions with 30+ customers
Identified customer persona based on pre-set parameters (food habits, unmet needs, purchasing power, etc.) and develop a list of adjacent opportunities which meet the client’s capabilities
Shortlisted key opportunities based on time & ease to market entry, developed detailed offering and GTM strategy for the shortlisted ones
Conducted customer survey of N = 500, to test adoption for new opportunities

Impact / Outcome

Client understood the existing customer needs and also achieved a strong grasp on the new opportunities with higher probability of customer adoption
Mapped need / adjacency overlaps with multiple customer segments, thus enabling to serve wide range of customers with limited investment

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Identifying new opportunities in online food ordering business using primary conversations

Objective

A restaurant chain aspired to expand their business with a new opportunity having immense potential to serve the needs and wants of customers by enhancing their food ordering experience
Define new business opportunities with the identification of immediate focus areas

Methodology

Primary discussions with customers ordering online helped create a blueprint of pain points for different customer journeys
Based on the articulation of pain points and needs of customers, the axes for a food ordering business are defined to give potential growth parameters for the business
With detailed analysis and discussions different business opportunities are defined

Impact / Outcome

Client understood in detail the wants of the customer and identified the major issues found in the existing offerings
Long list of opportunities proved to be of great help in covering the majority of needs and wants of the customers from the online food ordering business.
Client was provided with priority and impact for potential solutions to choose implementation order

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Commercial due diligence for eating-out platform including NPS diagnostics on various platforms

Objective

A PE firm was interested in investing in an online platform aiming to become the one-stop solution for eating out
Client specifically wanted to understand NPS of leading players viz. a viz. leading competitors along with drivers of promotion and detraction

Methodology

Conducted 2 customer surveys (warm) of N~500 each to understand customer perception and experience on eating-out platforms and gaps in experience across key metro cities in India
Conducted N = 20 interviews customer in-depth interviews to understand customer opinion on various eating-out platforms
Conducted N = 10 restaurant partner interviews to get their perspective on consumer experience and on-ground difficulties